The Date
by Shoshana Spring
Summary: Harry and Tom have been dating for over a year now.… Well, they have been sleeping together, but they have yet to go on a single date. Harry is putting his foot down and demanding that his lover take him on a real date.


If you haven't read my main story you can still read this. All you have to know is that Tom Riddle has escaped from the diary and is now it is early 20s and dating a roughly 17-year-old Harry Potter. Harry has gone dark and is helping Tom with the war against the light. There is no good or evil, the dark is slightly good, the light is slightly bad. Enjoy!

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"We are not dating." Harry said flatly.

"Don't be dramatic." Tom said packing books into his trunk. He did not look up from his task to see what expression Harry wore on his face.

"We aren't. You have yet to take me on one single date." Harry pointed out bitterly. He stopped pulling books off the shelves and crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn't happy. He didn't know if he could be, not in this relationship. Tom wasn't one to shower a lover with affection, warmth, or love. He was a cold, calculating, self-serving man.

"Dates are for muggles and Light witches that need money showered on them to feel important." Tom said with his trademark mixture of logic and blind hatred. Harry had grown to know the beauty of the conflicting aspects of his… consorts personality. If you could call it a personality. Tom definitely had a defined sarcastic wit, but Harry had found much of his range of emotion when examined closely was manufactured. His charming smile, his sympathetic year, his laughter, all carefully constructed in an effort to mold another into performing as he willed.

"It would be nice." Harry said with a touch of sadness in his voice. He knew Tom was beyond manipulation, but it was the appropriate guilt trip.

"It would be a waste of time. We are fighting a war, you know." Tom said finally looking away from the stack of books he had been piling into his trunk.

"We could use a break." Harry pointed out, they had been training full out for months now. Tom seemed beyond showing fatigue, but Harry could use a break from the endless barrage of meetings and negotiations.

"If you want to go out for dinner, I am sure Lucius's son would take you." Tom said without a hint of jealousy and his voice. Tom didn't get jealous. He became possessive, but he had dismissed Draco as a threat. When Harry had probed him on the subject he had discovered that Tom felt that if Harry were attracted to Tom then it was impossible for him to be attracted to someone so emotionally disparate from himself.

Harry knew the effort would be wasted, but he tried to bring on jealousy nevertheless. "Oh Draco has taken me on many, many dinners, but I want a date." The end came out a touch whiny to Harry's years and he regretted the tone immediately.

"You are behaving like a child." Tom chastised.

That was it Tom, go for my childishness. That will work. Harry thought anger rising. "Good. I had most of my childhood ripped away from me by a madman who killed my mother, got me shipped off to live with muggles, and then just kept on trying to kill me."

"Guilt does not work on me." Tom said in a calm level voice.

"It should." Harry said allowing himself to pout.

Tom stood up from his kneeling position on the floor next to his trunk. He looked at Harry, his eyes ever scrutinizing in an attempt to discover the, motivation, behind Harry's words and actions. "Well it doesn't, make a logical argument for why I should waste my time taking you to dinner and I will consider it."

Harry threw up his hands and frustration. He was not – dating a brick wall. He was in the prime of his life and he was wasting himself on this robotic monster who wouldn't even take him to dinner. "I'm hungry."

"Call a house elf." Tom said flatly.

"I need to know you care about me." Harry said with his best puppy dog eyes.

Tom seemed to think for only half a second before saying, "You literally have a fragment of my soul inside you. Mushy muggle sentiment aside, I would lose part of myself if something were to ever happen to you." Coming from virtually anyone else, the sentiment would have been behind the words, poetic and loving. Coming from Tom it felt almost like a threat.

"I want to go on a date, Tom!" Harry shouted in exasperation.

"And yet you have not provided a single reason why I should be the one to take you. Wizards don't date. Dark wizards even less. Pureblood dark wizards... have arranged marriages." Tom argued.

"You are a pureblood dark wizard. You didn't have an arranged marriage." Harry retorted.

"I was an orphan. There was no one left to arrange my marriage." Tom said in a level voice reminding Harry of this known fact.

"Being stuck in a diary for 50 years probably didn't help you get dates either." Harry muttered bitterly more to himself and to Tom.

"Precisely, and as you were also...an orphan of sorts, that explains your lack of an arranged marriage. Your father was unable to do so from behind bars." Tom said explaining the obvious.

"So, as we have no one to arrange our marriages, we should date." Harry said triumphantly.

"Very good... I see what you did there… That nice way you twisted around my logic so that I made your point." Tom said with a smirk that seemed to denote genuine approval.

"What do you have accepted it if I had made it?" Harry said cheekily still glowing in his triumph.

"Probably not." Tom said smirk still on his face.

"Precisely." Harry said firmly nodding once.

"So… What hell do you have in store for me?" Tom asked in gracious defeat.

"Me? I want you to take me on a date. That means you have to plan it." Harry said with a wicked smile on his face.

"You are aware that as a corporeal manifestation of a memory of a orphaned wizard from an impoverished family, I have no money of my own." Tom pointed out.

"Pathetic excuse. Lucius would be more than happy to give you money, I doubt he would even ask what it was for." Harry said dismissively. Tom wasn't going to get away with not taking him on a date because of something as trivial as money.

"You are insufferable."

"And you need to plan a date."

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Harry had to admit that Tom had done alright. The restaurant was appropriately swanky, the flowers had been a nice touch. They were sitting in a upscale muggle restaurant in Prague. Harry had reasoned that they couldn't really risk Tom being seen in a wizarding area of the city. Tom had argued that he was perfectly fine in the more traditionally dark parts of the city as long as he kept his hood up. Harry put his foot down at that. He was not going to hide on his date. Harry had insisted on a muggle restaurant. It only took a week for Tom to give in to his demands. Harry wanted a proper date, so he was getting a proper date.

So, there they sat in an opulent restaurant set in the heart of Wenceslas Square. Their table sat in the magnificent cellar set among the stalactites and sculptures from Greek mythology, recounting the story of Eurydice and her husband Orpheus. Harry was pleased. The light bounced off the cave ceiling creating a magical, intimate and almost romantic feel. He was impressed that Tom had chosen such an appropriate setting for their first proper date.

Harry and Tom waited at their table set for two while a muggle played the baby grand piano that sat in the corner. It wasn't long before a bubbly blond approached them. After asking if the couple had been to the restaurant before and receiving two small shakes of heads, the charming waitress explained that the restaurant had opened in 1912 and offered a menu of traditional local and international options. She left to give them a moment to look over their menus.

Harry cast a quick wandless spell over his menu to translate the writing. He opted for a rustic potato dish that he could only pronounce the name of due to his helpful translation candies. Tom had fish.

"Isn't this romantic?" Harry asked.

"The lighting is low, the tablecloth is white, the food is expensive. I think the restaurant has mastered the cliché quite well." Tom said flatly.

"Can't you pretend? For me? Just for tonight, pretend that you love me and want to make me happy." Harry said in frustration.

"Is that how you feel? That I don't care for you?" Tom asked, mild realization showing on his face.

"How would I know? All we do is train, and plan, and negotiate. Everything you do is for the war." Harry said sadly.

"Everything WE do is for US. We are in a war to protect our people." Tom explained.

"Yes, it is for us, for our people, for the greater good." Harry said bitterly.

"I am not Dumbledore." Tom said coldly. He took a drink of his water goblet, the ice clicking on the class as he set it back down on the pristine white tablecloth.

"No, but you might be Grindelwald. Have you forgotten, it was his phrase, not Dumbledore's." Harry said unfolding his napkin and placing it in his lap.

"I am not like him either." Tom assured him following his gestures and placing his own napkin in his lap.

"Aren't we though? Striving for a victorious end to this war? When is enough enough? When can we live our lives together. At what point will you be satisfied to just be with me, rule by my side over our people." Harry said exasperated. He paused as the waitress came by and filled their wine glasses. Harry took a sip and fought back the urge to grimace. He had never acquired a taste for the dry red liquid.

"When hatred of our kind has been eliminated, eradicated from the face of the earth." Tom said swirling the red wine in his glass before sipping at it himself. His reaction lacked Harry's disgust. Here he wondered when Tom had had the opportunity to gain a taste for wine.

"Then how are you different from Grindelwald? Are you going to turn into the murderous monster that you were in the last war? Start cutting up your soul again?" Harry said anger rising in his voice.

"I promised you I wouldn't." Tom said calmly.

"Well at least I get that much consideration." Harry said once again muttering to himself more than Tom.

"What do you want? What will make you happy?" said Tom finally mirroring Harry's frustration.

Harry didn't speak for a long time. He thought. Was there anything that Tom could do that would make him happy in this relationship? Or, was the relationship simply doomed? Now that Harry knew about the quirks of Tom's psyche, did they even have a chance? "I don't know, I want more." Harry said finally.

Harry was watching Tom's expression. If he watched very very closely he could sometimes read it. It's movements were subtle, but they were there if you locked. Tom seemed to consider several different options for how to respond before settling on, "We are at a beautiful restaurant, try to enjoy yourself."

That night Harry slept in his room at Black Manor. Tom didn't question him when he said he wanted to go home. He knew he had disappointed his consort, but he didn't know if he was capable of giving Harry what he wanted. He didn't think he was made for love. He wasn't even sure if he believed it was real.

In an oversized bed laden with goose feather duvets in a quiet room in Black Manor Harry cried himself to sleep.

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Authors note:

This was originally written as a chapter for my main story, Time's Children. It was a door prize for Jeramy Toombs, who was the 100th review for that story. Jeramy Toombs had asked me to write a chapter where Harry and Tom go on a traditional Muggle date. I had every intention of it being a lighthearted, funny bit of comedic relief to put into the story. It turned out to be rather depressing. As I no longer want to include this in the main story, as I am hoping that Harry and Tom never get to this bad of a spot in their relationship, I am posting it as a one off story. If I can manage to rewrite it and come out with something funny, I will endeavor to include it in the main story.


End file.
